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“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” Matthew 7:11-12 (NKJV).
“Love your neighbor as yourself” bounces off treating “others as you want them to treat you.” Not as they do treat you, but as you would want them to. How would you want someone to treat you? To “love your neighbor as yourself” means to treat others as you would want to be treated. To “love your neighbor as yourself” means to remember that you and they are, essentially, the same, not identical, but substantially the same. They, other people, have, similar needs and desires, hopes and fears, limitations, and shortcomings as yourself. They are your equals, in which they are also made in the image of God as His children. They, too, are creatures of infinite worth and dignity. They, too, are frail and finite, weak and willful, selfish, and stupid, deprived and depraved; just as you are. And then we treat them as we treat them as we ourselves want and need to be treated: with love, in which means with respect, affection, honesty, and kindness. And having established that love requires the “other” or “others” we can see that the statement “God is love” only possible if God is more than one person. When we say “God is love” we are saying God is more than one and yet he is one: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are united as one in the harmony of perfect love. There is one God and God is one because God is love. And because God is with us and loves us we can love and be loved even when we are on our own.“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us” 1 John 4:17-19 (NKJV).
The Bible tells us how to love our neighbors, sometimes in ways that the world would tell us is wrong or involves too much giving of our own selves. Along with the Bible equips us to love our neighbors even when it’s hard and goes against everything in our being. What matters to God is our love for Him and our love for each other. Our wealth, popularity, influence and status count for nothing in the kingdom of God. When we truly love our neighbors, we do our part to make the world a better place, and we find our own fulfillment in life. The injunction “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” is part of a sole responsibility for all believers. Love thy neighbor as thyself. A version of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Loving one’s neighbor can be a challenging prospect. Some are blessed with good neighbors and others…not so much. To truly fulfill this commandment, we need to love the unlovable, angry and difficult people around us, not just those we like.“Do not do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you.” “Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you.” “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Execute true justice, Show mercy and compassion; Everyone to his brother. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, The alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart. Against his brother” Zechariah 7:9-10 (NKJV).
The Bible tells us what isn’t loving and does further harm. And the Bible furnishes us to love our neighbors as ourselves. But if we aren’t careful in studying Scripture, we can easily twist it (possibly by accident) in such a way that keeps us from loving one another as we should. James calls us to carefully consider our roles as teachers because of the impact of our work. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All people are your neighbors, your equals, substantially the same as you. They, too, were also made in the image of God as his children. They, too, are creatures of infinite worth and dignity. the sheer fact that Jesus said this. He didn't have to say it. The Pharisee didn't ask this, Jesus went beyond what he asked and said more. He seems to want to push the importance and centrality of these commandments as much as he can. He has said that the commandment to love God is great and foremost. He has said the commandment to love your neighbor as you love yourself is like it. But Jesus doesn't stop there. He wants us to be stunned at how important these two commandments are. He wants us to stop and wonder. He wants us to spend more than a passing moment on these things. We have the greatest commandment in all the revelation of God to humanity (Love God); and we have the second greatest, which is like the greatest (Love your neighbor). “They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” 1 John 4:5-7 (NKJV).
Some people over the centuries have tried to take sentences like the Golden Rule and say that Jesus was mainly a profound teacher of human ethics; and that what he taught is not dependent on God or any relationship with God. In fact, this is a very profound key to how we are able to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. So, God is here upholding the Golden Rule by his fatherly provision. His love for us and our trusting, prayerful love back to him is the source of power for living the Golden Rule. So, you can't turn Jesus into a mere teacher of ethics. So loving others is the outward manifestation, the visible expression, the practical demonstration, and therefore the fulfillment of what the Old Testament is about. So, there is a sense in which the second commandment (to love your neighbor) is the visible goal of the whole Word of God. It's not as though loving God is not here, or that loving God is less important; rather loving God is made visible and manifest and full in our visibly, practically, sacrificially loving others. Loving our neighbor as we love ourselves is not something we can do on our own. We do it by the Holy Spirit. And we saw last week that Paul teaches God supplies the Spirit to us through faith.
“Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up” Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (NKJV).
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